# Quote — John Berger, Selected Essays of John Berger

> Yet why should an artist's way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Why does it give us pleasure? Because, I believe, it increases our awareness of our own potentiality. Not of course our awareness of our potentiality as artists ourselves. But a way of looking at the world implies a certain relationship with the world, and every relationship implies action. The kind of actions implied vary a great deal. ... A work of art can, to some extent, increase an awareness of different potentialities in different people. The important point is that a valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement. Nor need the word be optimistic to achieve this; indeed, its subject may be tragic. For it is not the subject that makes the promise, it is the artist's way of viewing his subject. Goya's way of looking at a massacre amounts to the contention that we ought to be able to do without massacres.

- Author: [John Berger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-berger.md)
- Book: [Selected Essays of John Berger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-berger/selected-essays-of-john-berger.md)
- Page: 18
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Berger#Selected_Essays_of_John_Berger_(2014)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-berger/selected-essays-of-john-berger/yet-why-should